Location: The Lemanissier Ranch, Outside Amarillo, Texas
Date: July 5, 2016, 09:34 Hours
Alen was realizing that peace wasn't just the absence of conflict. It was a discipline, a muscle that needed daily exercise, or it would weaken under the pressure of his bloodline.
For months, the ranch's rhythm had anchored him. He found refuge in the quiet before dawn, kneeling on the rough wooden floor of the dojo and breathing in sync with Master Shi Yan Xing. The only sounds were livestock stirring in the distance and the slow beat of his own heart, resisting the haunting lullaby lingering at the edges of his dreams.
He engaged in honest work, mending fences and harvesting vegetables under the vast and unforgiving Texas sky. It was a life built on sweat and soil, a direct challenge to the legacy of grandeur, viruses, and godhood he had been handed.
But beneath the peaceful surface, other work continued.
In the hidden subterranean silo beneath the barn, Alen fought a silent battle against digital decay. Twelve hard drives recovered from the Caucasus facility sat on his main console like black monoliths. The Red Queen's backup wasn't a sleek, waiting intelligence; she was a shattered mirror.
Alen had spent three weeks as a digital archaeologist, soldering micro-connections and writing emulators to connect modern hardware with outdated Umbrella protocols. He pieced together fragmented code.
<< SYSTEM CORE FRAGMENT DETECTED. >>
<< FILE ALLOCATION TABLE: CORRUPTED. >>
<< PRIMARY PERSONALITY MATRIX: OFFLINE. >>
The text scrolled in amber monochrome across a secondary monitor. This wasn't the all-powerful, murderous AI from the Arklay Mansion tales. It was a coma patient, her memories—Umbrella's darkest secrets—scattered like confetti across damaged sectors.
"You're just a ghost of a ghost," Alen muttered, sipping bitter, cold coffee. The blue light from the screens reflected in his glasses, hiding the fatigue in his eyes. "But even ghosts can show where the bodies are buried."
He rubbed his temples. The project was massive, a puzzle without a picture on the box. It demanded time he didn't have and a level of focused calm that felt increasingly fragile.
10:15 Hours – The South Field
The morning sun warmed Alen's back as he worked a post-hole digger into the dry earth. The smell of turned soil and tomato vines filled the air. Fifty yards away, in the shade of an ancient live oak, Master Shi sat in the lotus position. A worn copy of the Tao Te Ching rested on his knees as he immersed himself in the stillness.
Then, a gunshot shattered the world.
It wasn't close—a flat, dry crack rolled across the hills, originating half a mile east near the old, dried-up creek bed that marked the property line. To anyone else, it might have sounded like a rancher putting down a lame horse or taking a shot at a coyote.
But to ears trained in the killing fields of Edonia and the sterile labs of Seien Island, the acoustic signature was all wrong.
Alen froze, gripping the wooden handles of the digger.
Too sharp. Too clinical. That was a high-velocity round. 5.56mm or .308. Suppressed.
He moved before the echo faded. The peaceful rancher vanished; the Phantom Soldier took over.
"Master!" Alen called, his voice breaking through the humid air. He grabbed the lever-action Winchester shotgun resting against the fence post—usually a tool for snakes, now a weapon of war.
In one quick motion, he vaulted onto the back of Atlas, his black quarter horse. The animal sensed the change in his rider's energy and stamped impatiently, ears pinned back.
Master Shi stood up, his book forgotten in the grass. He didn't look alarmed; he looked resigned. "Trouble?"
"Gunshot. East ridge. Not a hunter," Alen said, scanning the tree line. His Reality-Lens Perception triggered involuntarily, sharpening the world into high-contrast focus. Distances calculated, wind speed estimated, and threat vectors analyzed.
"The wind carries many things," the old master said, his voice calm yet firm. "Be careful what burden you choose to bring home, Nicolas."
"I'll be fast."
With a click of his tongue, Alen urged Atlas into a gallop. The horse charged forward, hooves pounding against the hard-packed earth. Alen leaned low over the mane, his mind racing faster than the horse.
Why here? Why now?
It could mean nothing. A poacher. A drug deal gone wrong. But paranoia was a survival trait in the Wesker bloodline. The timing, so soon after his return from Russia, felt like a noose tightening.
He reined Atlas in at the crest of the ridge, hidden by cedar trees. He pulled a compact pair of tactical monoculars from his saddlebag and scanned the valley below.
Contact.
A black, unmarked van with tinted windows idled on the old access road. Two men moved at the back of the vehicle. They wore "sanitized" tactical gear—no patches, no insignias, just functional gray and black. Not military. Contractors.
They dragged a limp form from the rear doors. From this distance, Alen saw the dark, wet stain spreading across the victim's torso.
A woman.
Alen watched, frozen for a crucial second, as one man checked her neck for a pulse. A brief shake of the head. They weren't taking her. They were disposing of her. With cold precision, they swung the body and dumped her into a narrow gully—a dry scar in the earth meant for runoff.
It was chilling. This wasn't a crime of passion; it was a transaction.
The van doors slammed shut. The engine revved, and the vehicle sped away in a cloud of dust, disappearing toward the county road.
"No," Alen whispered. The code of the shadow war was clear: Do not intervene. Do not expose.
But the code of the dojo was louder.
Atlas plunged down the slope, hooves sliding on loose shale. Alen leaped from the saddle while the horse was still moving, hitting the ground in a sprint. He skidded into the bottom of the gully, dust billowing around his boots.
The woman lay like a broken doll at an unnatural angle against the limestone. Blood, shockingly red against the white rock, soaked her expensive dark clothing. A gunshot wound high on her chest, another in her abdomen. Defensive slashes marked her forearms. Her face was a mix of dirt and blood.
Alen dropped to his knees. His fingers found her throat. The skin felt cool and clammy.
Thump… thump…
Thready. Fluttering like a trapped bird in a cage. But it was there.
"You are not done," he growled, the words meant for her, for fate, for the men who left her.
His enhanced strength made her weight seem light. He scooped her up, cradling her against his chest. Her blood soaked into his work shirt, hot and sticky. He whistled sharply. Atlas trotted over, nervous at the smell of blood.
Alen mounted with a burst of core strength and balance that defied logic, holding the woman securely with one arm.
"Home, boy! Now!"
11:00 Hours – The Ranch House
He burst into the yard, shouting before the horse stopped. "Master Shi! The spare room! Now! I need the surgical kit, the IV stand, everything!"
The old monk appeared on the porch. His eyes widened slightly at the sight of the blood-soaked rider, but a lifetime of discipline took over. He nodded once. "It is ready."
Alen carried her inside, kicking the door open. He laid her gently on the table he had prepped for emergency field medicine. The sterile, efficient part of his mind—the part trained by Project Aegis medics and refined by his own studies—took command. He walled away the shock. He became a machine of salvation.
"Scissors."
He cut away her ruined silk blouse, revealing the devastation. The chest wound bubbled sickeningly—a sucking chest wound. Air was entering the pleural space.
Pneumothorax imminent.
He grabbed a sealed foil packet, tore it open with his teeth, and slapped an occlusive dressing over the hole. Seal the box.
Next, the abdomen. No exit wound. The bullet was still inside, likely lodged near the spine or liver.
"Light," he commanded.
Master Shi held the battery-powered lamps steady, his hands rock-still. Under the harsh glow, Alen's hands moved. These hands, capable of punching through concrete, were now instruments of exquisite delicacy. Forceps probed the wound channel. Metal scraped bone.
Clink.
He withdrew a flattened 9mm slug and dropped it into a metal bowl.
He irrigated the cavities with sterile saline, the water running pink onto the floor. Then came the suturing. Layer by layer—muscle, fascia, subcutaneous tissue, skin—each stitch was neat, tight, and strong.
Two hours passed in a silent, intense fugue.
Finally, Alen leaned back, wiping sweat from his eyes with a bloody forearm. The immediate threats were controlled. The bleeding had stopped. But she was pale as parchment, her lips blue.
"She's lost too much volume," Alen said, his voice raspy. "She needs fluids. Blood."
He grabbed a warm, damp cloth and began to clean her face, wiping away the mud and dried blood to check for cranial trauma.
As the grime cleared, Alen stopped.
The cloth fell from his hand.
The arch of the brow. The sharp, aristocratic nose. The specific curve of the lip, even in unconsciousness.
A cold dread, entirely separate from the medical emergency, washed over him. The room seemed to tilt.
He knew this face.
He had seen it in classified Umbrella files. He had seen it on the news following the Kijuju incident. He had seen it in the mission reports regarding the Uroboros project.
Excella Gionne. The Tricell CEO. The aristocratic pawn of Albert Wesker. The woman who had helped burn the world, only to be consumed by the very virus she helped create.
She was dead. The BSAA report was definitive. She had mutated into an Uroboros monstrosity and was incinerated by satellite laser fire in an African volcano. There was no body left to bury.
Yet, here she was. Breathing on his table in Texas.
"A clone?" he breathed, his mind racing through the possibilities. "A twin? A hallucination?"
The genetic implications were staggering. He quickly drew a blood sample and ran it through his portable field analyzer.
TYPE: B-POSITIVE.
It matched the Tricell medical records he had in the database.
He turned to Master Shi, his face pale. "Master… watch her. Do not leave her side. If she wakes, do not approach her—she could be dangerous. Call for me immediately."
"Where are you going?" Shi asked, sensing the fear in his student.
"I need blood. O-Negative. Lots of it." Alen grabbed his motorcycle keys. "The wind didn't just bring a storm, Master. It brought a ghost."
18:00 Hours
The sun was setting, casting long, bloody shadows across the room.
The transfusion was set up. The bag of dark red O-Negative hung from the stand, the life-giving fluid dripping slowly into the woman's vein. The room smelled of antiseptic, copper, and Master Shi's herbal tea.
Alen sat in a chair by the bed, watching the slow rise and fall of her chest. He was exhausted, his shirt still stained, but his mind was wired.
Master Shi broke the silence, his voice low. "You know this woman."
"I know her face," Alen corrected, staring at the patient who was the mirror image of a dead bioterrorist. "But I do not know her."
"She carries a heavy darkness," Shi observed. "Even in sleep, her brow is furrowed. She is fighting a battle."
"If she is who I think she is," Alen said grimly, "she helped start a war that almost ended humanity."
He looked at the monitors. Her vitals were stabilizing. The mystery woman—clone, twin, or miraculous survivor—had enemies. Professional ones. Someone wanted Excella Gionne erased from history, again.
Alen leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He had gone out to fix a fence and investigate a noise. He had come back with the one thing he had been trying to escape: his father's legacy.
Fate, it seemed, had a vicious sense of irony. It had paired a Wesker with a Gionne once more. But this time, the dance would not be in a high-rise boardroom or a volcanic laboratory. It would begin here, in a dusty ranch house, with a choice to heal rather than consume.
"Rest," Alen whispered to the unconscious woman. "Because when you wake up, I have a lot of questions."
Mission Update:
Status: Complicated.
New Asset: Unidentified Female (Excella Gionne Lookalike).
Current Objective: Stabilize patient. Determine identity. Prepare for potential hostiles.